100 One-Shots
by Anne Onymus
Summary: I've joined Prin Pardus' 100 One-Shots challenge! About four years too late, but it'll still be fun (at least for me, I hope for you). Different chapters may have different ratings.


**A/N: I wrote this one just this night and didn't edit. If you have any advice for improving it (especially the end, the end is shamefully bad) then could you give it? Thanks!**

_**First prompt: Injured**_

"Shaggypaw? Are you all right?"

_Oh, no._ Shaggypaw had been hoping no one would notice his clawed side and shoulder, especially not Icestone. He didn't want his irritable old mentor's fury—partly because deep down he realized Icestone cared for and trusted him, and his fury usually came from disappointment.

"Ye—uh—of course." Shaggypaw tried to turn so as to hide his injury. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're not mixing with the others," Icestone said with his usual bluntness. "No sharing tongues, no sparring matches, no mossballs flying at my face, no contests to see which apprentice can scratch the most bark off a tree. When _you're_ the one sitting and watching other cats' conversations, I think maybe something's happened."

"Oh—well—" _How doesn't he notice?_ Though Strongstar had explained things to him, Shaggypaw still felt as if his mentor should remember. "Nothing—nothing big."

Saying that hurt.

Icestone peered closely into his face. Shaggypaw jerked his head back, as he used to when he was a kit afraid of the blunt white warrior. Icestone withdrew—he was used to taking extra precautions not to scare cats—and said in the "gentle" voice he used when he really had to, "But not too small to hurt, I would guess?"

This just topped off Shaggypaw's confusion. He looked desperately to Strongstar, but the leader was busy sharing tongues with his mate Frostwing.

"Well—" But he couldn't get any further.

When they'd both been silent long enough, Icestone said a bit gruffer, "Darkpaw hasn't been troubling you, has he? Nor Rosepaw?"

"No." Shaggypaw almost wished he could explain his cuts that way—Darkpaw had told him again to stay away from Rosepaw, and the argument had gotten a little too emphatic. But Rosepaw had found them out a moon ago and told them to put it off at least till she and they were warriors, and the two toms had kept their claws in since then.

"Well—" Icestone actually hesitated a bit. "—whatever it is, there's a set of claws on your side." He licked himself on the shoulder rather awkwardly.

Icestone didn't say such things often. Normally Shaggypaw would have jumped on his mentor by way of a thank-you, but here he just continued the miserable silence.

Suddenly Strongstar called out, "Hey, Icestone, come over here!"

Icestone got up. Shaggypaw's fur fell back down and his tail relaxed. The torture was ended.

Icestone padded over to his old friend and leader, then was surprised by Strongstar's turning and heading for the leader's den. Friends they might be, but if anyone besides Strongstar's mate, kits, or littermates went into his den, it was usually to give him advice. And Icestone hadn't heard of any trouble with the other Clans that he could advise Strongstar about.

"So what's the news?" he asked. And then was surprised again—the leader's odd kit-blue eyes (they'd given him a lot of pain in the past) filled with sadness.

"Ice, did you see Shaggypaw's wounds?"

Wounds? "No." This didn't surprise Strongstar—he knew (though hardly anyone else did) that Icestone was almost blind, and found his way around by smell, hearing, and sheer knowledge of the lay of the land. "Who did it?" he asked, his voice stony against whatever cat Strongstar would name.

Silence, for too long. Then, "You did."

Now Icestone was gone, Shaggypaw could make sense of things. It really was just like his conversation with Strongstar in the leader's den that sunhigh.

"_What happened, Shaggypaw?"_

"_Icestone—he was giving me battle practice. But when I did that eye-swipe Fireflower showed me, he—he—" But the image was still too bright and terrible to speak: his mentor suddenly lunging viciously at him, seeming not to hear his startled questions, bearing down on him with claws and teeth, destroying one side before Shaggypaw managed to wriggle out (causing another set of tears) and run away._

"_Oh. Oh. I see." The leader's voice suddenly sounded very weary. Grimly he licked the shivering apprentice on top of the head. Shaggypaw stepped back—now that he was more-or-less safe again, he considered himself too old to be comforted like a kit._

"_That wasn't—that wasn't him. Not him as he normally is. Of course you know that. But—yes, there's another thing—that takes hold of him sometimes—"_

_Much later, Strongstar was able to go on, "I think it's because—when he and I were new warriors, thirteen moons old, we were sent on a mission, to scout for new territory—what's now our meadow. He went farther than the mission required. And he fell in with a band of rogues—rogues who had horrible customs, horrible treatment of anyone outside themselves. He barely sometimes—he remembers it—and he forgets what's happening, who's in front of him right now. He's injured, you see. So he acted as if you were—one of those rogues._

"_I'm sorry, Shaggypaw. I shouldn't have given you to him or him to you. Do you think you'll want a new mentor?"_

_And, though it made him feel like a traitor, Shaggypaw knew how to answer._

"But I still need your consent," Strongstar told Icestone.

The old white warrior was sitting bolt upright, hackles raised, his tail stiff around his paws but the tip twitching. He got up and started pacing fast, his claws punching holes in the dust.

"Yes—why not! We want him to live to his assessment, after all."

Strongstar placed his tail over his friend's shoulders, but Icestone hardly slowed his pacing. Eventually he asked, still tightly but quieter, "Who'll be his new mentor?"

The leader thought a little. "Fireflower's capable, and has the right confidence and caring for a mentor. How about her?"

Icestone only gave a curt nod, but slowed a little more. Then, taking just one more measured step, he asked, "You don't think Hazelleaf could use some company, do you?"

Strongstar ended up smiling. He was glad Icestone had finally made that choice for himself—it hurt to force a friend into anything. And when he talked of Hazelleaf—who had been an apprentice with them both and was now the lone cat in the elder's den—Icestone had used his "gentle" voice without realizing it.

"_All cats able to hunt and climb join beneath the leader's pine!_"

Cats chattered curiously as they gathered around the big, wide pine at the edge of camp. Three cats—Shaggypaw, Fireflower, and Icestone—were lined up under the branch on which Strongstar was standing.

"We come here to witness, first, the retirement of Icestone to the elder's den. He has served us long and well, since the mission when he added the meadow to our territory and rabbit to our fresh-kill pile. He was always glad to serve in battle; so I am glad he chose to leave battles willingly, and at the right time."

The Clan knew what he meant by "the right time". Everyone now knew that there was something unpredictable and unpleasant about Icestone, and they thought it was high time the leader realized this and saved Shaggypaw, whose left half was now streaked with pink scars.

Icestone touched noses, very carefully, with Shaggypaw as a goodbye, and walked over beside Hazelleaf.

"And last—but not lesser—

"Shaggypaw, it is time for you to be reapprenticed. Your new mentor will be Fireflower. I hope she will pass down all she knows to you.

"Fireflower, you are ready to take on an apprentice. You received excellent training from Hawkfeather, and you have shown yourself to be confident and generous to others. You will be Shaggypaw's mentor, and I expect you to pass down all you know to him."

And they too touched noses.

Shaggypaw knew he'd have fun with his new mentor. Fireflower had taught him several battle moves lately, in such a way that he could actually like battle training again (which Fireflower said was good, as he had a talent for it), and they'd worked together to catch a rabbit.

"Hey Fireflower," he whispered, "mind if I go over there and . . .?" He pointed his muzzle in Icestone's direction.

"Sure," said Fireflower. The old tom looked safe enough at the moment, conversing with Hazelleaf. She watched her new apprentice as he bounded over to the two elders, though she thought their conversation might be private and didn't come close enough to hear it.

"Hi, Icestone!" meowed Shaggypaw as he skidded to a stop, interrupting the elders' talk.

"Hello, Shaggypaw," said Hazelleaf, and Icestone nodded questioningly.

"Um—well, I just wanted to say," Shaggypaw stumbled about for words, "that I—I don't hate you, Icestone. Strongstar told me you—that, it wasn't your fault. And you're still a—a hero." He finished in a barely audible mumble.

"Just what I was about to say," Hazelleaf remarked.

What in StarClan was Icestone supposed to say to _that_? Finally he muttered a gruff, "Thank you—both," looking casually at a nearby tree.

"You're welcome!" grinned Shaggypaw; he pelted away to play some game or other with the kits or apprentices.

"But this doesn't settle the question," Icestone said, turning back to Hazelleaf. "Are you going to share a den with someone who might any night mistake you for a deadly threat and try to . . ."

"Yes," said Hazelleaf gently, and Icestone didn't know whether she meant _yes, I know you mean 'attack me'_ or _yes, I will_. "Well, you'll wake up eventually. And if my fighting skills are going, I can yowl for help with the best of them."

Icestone couldn't find this funny.

"And if I said no, what would you do? Sleep in the mud?"

"Nothing I haven't done before."

"But nothing you _should_ do. I know we never . . . became mates, Icestone. But that was my youth's arrogance. Since then I've been noticing . . . you don't deserve to sleep in the mud."

"It's practical though."

"Well, first why don't we see how you do in the den? And then—_if_ it turns out necessary—you can have your own den built and sleep there."

That sounded like making too big a deal of it, but Icestone decided to end the argument for now.

"Anyway—"

A flying mossball hit him in the face.


End file.
